The Press Democrat from Santa Rosa, California • 18

PRESS Tuesday, Decemhe 22, 1981 usiness Fed policy criticized 'Marketing genius' sells to businessmen as recession cause .1. 1 4 simply cannot be supported by a viable U.S. economy." Why do such deficits persist despite attempts to lessen them? Because, declares Wright, "the Federal Reserve Board pursues an unnecessarily restrictive monetary policy." Supply-side programs, he continues, have no chance of sucess unless there is a prompt and sizeable drop in interest rates, "which are still substantially higher than the levels which in 1974-1975 caused the worst recession since the depression of the 1930s." The premise that high interest rates and recessions are necessary to stop inflation, says Wright, is false. Recessions, he agrees, do bring down inflation, but only at the price of lasting economic damage, and great human misery. Moreover, they reduce tax revenues, run up welfare costs, and add to the overall cost of unemployment benefits.

They waste billions of hours of human and industrial resources, thus subtracting from potential revenues. Because of needlessly high interest rates, he asserts, the federal debt burden soon will become With an average sale of $160, Thalheimer targeted a specific market businessmen between the ages of 25 and 50 with "upscale incomes" between $25,000 and $10,000. This recession-proof slice of the market partly accounts for the vitality of The Shaper Image, he says. Sales more than doubled in the past year, while Thalheimer said other mail order businesses grew 15 per cent. Thalheimer was a Hasting Law School graduate who decided he didn't want to spend 30 years as a lawyer before heading a successful business.

"I wanted to have a successful business in five years," he said. After peddling typewriter ribbons door-to-door in San Francisco's financial district. Thalheimer hit on the idea that blossomed into The Sharper Image. He placed a $200 ad for a $29 stop watch in a runner's magazine, an investment that returned a $500 profit. This year's advertising budget was $6 million.

Thalheimer keeps the 106-employee operation simple, using his tastes as a guide, tracking down products, writing the ads and even answering the phones. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Richard Thalheimer smiled, snapped his fingers and the light went on courtesy of one of the gadgets to be found thumbing through The Sharper Image mail order catalog that's made him rich. When Thalheimer. 33, talls himself a marketing genius, it's hard to argue. The switch is one of 170 items available through Thalheimer's catalog business, started in 1977 with first-year sales of $250,000.

Sales hit $35 million this year. "It's fun, but it's useful," Thalheimer said about the sound-actuated light switch selling for $34 as a burglar-stopper. And if that doesn't stop them, try a suit of Spanish armor for $2,450, or another new item a lightweight bullet-proof vest that Thalheimer says will stop a bullet at point-blank range. Most of Thalheimer's items, however, are functional and many are electronic like a runner's watch that gives you an instant pulse readout. You can also buy a pillow that looks like a BMW automobile, a cordless telephone or an executive chair modeled after a seat found in imported sports cars.

NEW YORK (AP) What keeps interest rates high, worsens the federal budget deficit, adds to unemployment, forces industrial machinery into idleness, thwarts investment and in general impedes economic recovery? The answer, according to one long-time student of such matters, is Federal Reserve policy. Yes, Fed policy. But wait. Isnt the Fed. monitor of the nation's money supply, doing its best to get the economy back on track? Isn't it trying to squeeze out inflation and direct savings into productive uses? Isn't it only trying to rein-in an economy that had gone on a wild spending spree? Have it your way, which is part of the accepted rationale for Fed actions, but don't expect John Wright to join you.

Wright, whose Wright Investors' Service runs a billion dollar portfolio and advises many individuals and institutions, thinks the Fed's ideas are as damaging economically as agent orange is ecologically. He has his reasons. To begin with current affairs, rather than citing past actions of the Fed, Wright observes that the nearly $400 billion of deficits expected from fiscal 1981 through fiscal 1984 are "so enormous that the sum 7 I i s. It if j- Richard Thalheimer and one of his catalog items Gold lacks luster as investment od, inflation was also spiraling. with no relief in sight.

While interest charges dim tl UJ nm make it costly to buy A gold on credit, the pre- fStf cious metal provides no low $380 a troy ounce in early November 1979 to a record $875 an ounce during trading on Jan. 21. 1930, as Soviet troops moved into Afghanistan and Iranians seized U.S. hostages in Tehran. But during that peri- on the heels of developments such as the Polish crackdown on the independent labor movement and the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights.

For example, gold prices soared from be NEW YORK (AP) Gold has lost its glitter to many investors. Even heightened tensions this week in Poland and the Middle East, the type of events that in the past have sent nervous investors scurrying to bullion as a safe haven for their funds, failed to change analysts' bleak outlook for the course of gold prices. "Gold is a neglected investment for good reason," says James E. Sinclair, a partner in Sinclair Securities a bullion dealer in New York. Even long-time holders of gold "are getting tired and bored," he adds, saying the outlook for the precious metal "at best is neutral." After a martial-law regime was created in Poland on Sunday, gold bullion shot up to $430 a troy ounce at the start of trading in Hong Kong, a gain of nearly $22.

But by the time Hong Kong markets closed, the gain had been reduced to $13.43 a troy ounce, and at the end of the trading day in New York, gold was up just $6 50 an ounce from the previous session, at $413 25. Not that long ago, gold prices would have taken off for a sustained rally French Continental Restaurant 1 "-j fcl 1 1 tl 521-525 College Santa Rosa Vlj ,1 I I 1 ojg- sJiPiO July vfi.t-r j-- i- Joseph Keller and Helmut Pauer wish eur faithful customers a fe '4 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Tj LUNCH 7, DINNER C' RMWTiUonj Suoffj Phone 5264233 HJ-JS 'Jii 1923. bigTALIshort ItGUtAt WIN art Ki vzn ir If you would like to personally operate your own business and t-your own bo. consider a unique dimension in the fat-fod chain industry I 117 jver the country, pt-fipie are buin; Chic k-fil-A's tasty hone- Moo St 30-6 (41S) W1I7I P. If 13S5Pet.

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