The Evening Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 49

Inside' Sylvia Porter. 10 Stocks steady. 1 0 WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1982 D7 THE EVENING SUN Dow averages Yesterday y. 0.28 20 348.64 up 1.17 0.69 pS7 65 Stocks. ..332.75 up 0.62 Rate Watch Prime rate 16.5 London gold N.A.

3-month T-bills ..12.849 London silver 6-month T-bills' 12.899 Mort. (FHA) ...15.50 6-month certificate ...13.154 Mortgages(10 dn) 17V4-19 Passbook. savings rate. 5.5 Money fund average .13.5 FINANCIAL I ii m. mm mm, mmm I Am a mm iiivemunt lower No cut in car prices is planned by GM tor third month WASHINGTON (AP) Inventories were down for the third straight month in February, according to the Commerce Department, as U.S.

businesses cut 0.4 percent deeper into their stocks of unsold goods. The new decline generally was expected and despif wage gains mnstlv wolromoH sinro foin rnmnanioe ran ho expected to resume full production or hire back -if- Financial Cranes Diaest i5 in port improve Ml rj.l laid-off workers while burdened with goods they have already produced but cannot sell. "On the whole it's good news," said Robert Ortner, the Commerce Department's chief economist yesterday. "Inventories are getting under control. I suspect we had further liquidation in March, and we'll probably have some more in April." I "The economy is still in recession," he said, predicting that national industrial production figures scheduled for release by the Federal Reserve Board tomorrow will be down for March.

1 Before December, the value of inventories held by American companies had risen every month since 1975. The December and January declines also were 0.4 percent, matching the May 1975 drop that was the biggest of that year's recession. Court ruling aids rate hike WASHINGTON (AP) A federal appeals court panel has upheld the basic regulatory poli-, cy decision that helped produce the largest longdistance telephone rate hike in history last summer. "We are convinced that the Federal Communications Commission has given due consideration to the problems before it and that it has arrived at a reasonable solution," the three judges said yesterday. Tho rivicinn Ornish ran ho annoalori in tho Sn- T.

,1 V7 Workers erect the WNUV's antenna at the television station's 1,1 Chicago Tribune CHICAGO General Motors doesn't plan to cut car prices, despite winning an estimated $2.5 billion in wage and benefit concessions from the United Auto Workers, says the president of the auto giant. And rumors that GM is interested in selling its La Grange-based Electro-Motive Division are unfounded, president F. James McDonald told newsmen after a seminar for GM shareholders yesterday in the Hyatt Regency Chicago. "In the UAW concessions, there was no agreement affecting prices," McDonald said. He insisted that incentives such as rebates and GM's reduced new-car interest rate program "are more stimulating" to sales than reducing prices.

"If you go with rebates and they don't work, you stop them. If you go with lower interest rates and they don't work, you stop them. If you cut prices, what do you do if they don't work? You're done. You've rolled the dice," he said. McDonald said GM's 12.8 percent interest ceiling on new-car loans through its General Motors Acceptance Corp.

subsidiary "is, in effect, a price reduction, when you realize that 75 percent of all our customers obtain retail financing." He estimated an average saving to a customer of $825 over four years. As for looking for a buyer for its diesel locomotive business, McDonald replied: "Why sell a division with 75 percent of its market? We've never discussed selling it and aren't interested in selling it. We are going to stay in the Electro-Motive business. "When you are in a recession or depression or whatever you want to call what we are in, freight hauling slows down considerably. And when equipment is idle, people aren't buying new equipment," he said, addressing the decline in locomotive business.

"But Electro-Motive has been and will continue to be a strong division for GM." McDonald said GM has "no plans at present" to follow the lead of some of its domestic competitors in offering a five-year "We are going to monitor what Chrysler and the others do and look at the reaction in the marketplace to see how successful they are. Once before the industry got into five-50, and it baffled the public on what was covered and what wasn't. Will it sell cars? We'll have to wait and see," he said. McDonald said the narrow margin (52 to 48 percent) of UAW approval of contract concessions meant: "We didn't do as good a job informing the employees what it takes to make this company viable. People read about us earning $333 million last year, and that indicated to some (that) we didn't need help.

Employees must understand what profits we need to be solid and (make) their jobs secure. 4 transmission site near Route 40 in Catonsville. Subscription TV to begin in June A a i By Ross Hetrick i Evenil)8SunSta; r-L. Breakdowns of gantry cranes at the Dundalk Marine Terminal have been reduced by half in the last three years ago, according to Maryland Port Administration statistics. i The improvement in the equip-j ment's performance comes despite dire warnings by state crane opera- tors who were replaced by longshore-1 men in August 1980, trmaffcix "As my mother use to tell me, then proof of the pudding is in the said James F.

Hogan, director of ter-i minal operations for the Port Administration. "The longshoremen have done a very decent job. A very good job." y-v- The four gantry cranes at the Dun-Hi dalk terminal were out of service forl a total of 2,625 hours during 1981 compared to 4,565 hours in 1979 when state employees operated them. As a percentage of the amout of time '--worked, the cranes were percent of the time in 1979 compared to 1.4 percent in 1981; the Port ministration said. For all 10 cranes at the Dundalk terminal, the largest general cargo facility in the port, the amount of downtime was 2.51 percent in 1981 compared with 2.97 percent in 1979.

Jf Before they were turned over to longshoremen in 1980, Port Adminis-u, tration workers had operated eight0" gantry cranes in the port four at Dundalk and three at other state-'" owned terminals. 1 Other Dundalk cranes, which can pick up van-sized containers, tradi- tionally have been operated by mem- bers of the International Longshore- -men's Association." The gantry cranes, which can; pick up conven-' tional cargo, are more complicated to operate. In May 1980, When the Port Administration proposed that longshore-men operate the gantry cranes, state workers objected vehemently and took their case to a legislative con mittee vj, tit prune L-ouri, uoes niu auuress uie lawiuiness vi each specific rate hike implemented by American Telephone Telegraph Co. last summer. Rather, it deals with an FCC decision in January 1981 to establish an "interim cost allocation manual" that set the stage for those rate hikes.

The cost allocation manual is a tool developed by the commission to divide and assign the costs of facilities between the company's three major interstate services: regular long-distance calls; Wide Area Telecommunications Service, or WATS lines, and private business lines used clusively by one customer. ftnnnnonte nf tho artinn nrcniP tho rnmmissinn ti il art acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in January 1981 when it abandoned a previous decision on the type of accounting system that would most accurately establish costs. Stroh gets OK from Justice halt for those without a device to unscramble WNUV's signal. Welcome to the world of subscription television. The unscrambling device, which rents for $20 a month, allows viewers to watch first-run commercial-free movies, sporting events perhaps, even, blacked-out Oriole and Colt games and other pay-per-view events.

Mark Salditch, director of programming and promotions for New Vision, describes pay-per-view: "This May, Thomas Hearns fights Marvin Hagler in a blacked-out match. You can go to the Civic Center for $25. Or you can sit at home we turn it on for $15." New Vision is owned by Samuel S. Kra-vetz, a Baltimore-native and former manager at WITH-FM radio for 12 years. Kra-vetz says that total construction of the new station, including a transmitter tower in Catonsville and a studio in Baltimore city, will cost about $3.5 million.

The station will employ 25-40 people. Continued, Page 10, Col.l ota, GM! Toy By Stacie Knable Evening Sun Staff If you're disappointed in family-programming on ABC, CBS and NBC, plant the spouse, children, grandmom and yourself in front of the boob-tube in about one month. That's when Baltimore begins screening pay-TV. At 7 a.m. on June 1, New-Vision Inc.

takes to the commercial airwaves, with a potpourri of programming over Channel 54 WNUVontheUHFdial. For the kids, cartoons will run from 7 a.m.-to-9 a.m.; from 9 a.m.-to-noon, lovers of tearjerkers can watch old Loretta YoungBette Davis-genre films. Business-fans may join "Your business connection," the Los Angeles-based Financial News Networkfeaturing a continuous stock market ticker-tape flashed across the screen from noon-to-5 p.m. Between 5 p.m.-to-7 p.m. the station will show suitable dinner-, time movies.

But at 7 p.m., the fun comes to an abrupt Deposit insurance changing? "WASHINGTON (AP)-Deposits in savings institutions may not have to be federally insured after the government relaxes controls over the institutions, says the head of a federal insurance agency. H. Brent Beesley, director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance said in a recent speech that money market mutual funds, which are not federally insured, have been very popular. "Is there really a need for federal deposit insurance anyway?" he said. "The tremendous success of money market mutual funds argue that federal deposit insurance may not be absolutely necessary." He added, however, that the savings insurance has "worked very well for almost 50 years" and that no saver has lost a cent in a federally insured account.

His remarks prompted some sources in the industry, who asked not to be named, to wonder why he brought up the subject when the industry is battered by unprecedented financial troubles. "What purpose is served in this atmosphere?" said one. William O'Connell, president of the U.S. League of Savings Associations, said through a spokesman that deposit insurance has been "the most effective means of stabilizing financial markets and the financial institutions ever devised." begin joint 1 effort talks TOKYO (AP)-General Motors Corp i and Toyota Motor Co. the largest, autr makers in the United States and Japan re- spectively began three days of talks today i on possible joint production of small cars' lit the United States, a Toyota spokesman The talks are being held at Toyota's 1 WASHINGTON (AP) The Justice Department said it had serious antitrust concerns about Stroh Brewery bid to buy controlling interest in Jos.

Schlitz Brewing but the department did not act to delay the deal. Stroh, of Detroit, has offered almost $316 million for 67 percent of the stock in Schlitz, of Mil-waukee. The offer expires April 23, and Stroh officials said last week that Schlitz stockholders had already tendered about 54 percent of the company's shares in response to their offer. Assistant Attorney General William F. Bax-'.

ter, head of the antitrust division, said yesterday he had informed the parties that the department would not seek additional information for its investigation. In a related development, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals yesterday denied a request by Stroh to force Schlitz to supply a list of shareholders to Stroh. 1 Last Thursday, a federal judge in Detroit dismissed an effort by Schlitz, the nation's third-largest brewer, to block the takeover by Stroh, the nation's seventh-largest brewer. Fraser warns Chrysler DETROIT (AP) The United Auto Workers will seek resumption of cost-of-living payments and will not grant more concessions when bargaining begins this summer with Chrysler union President Douglas A. Fraser said.

"It's unthinkable that we will make additional concessions to Chrysler," Fraser said yesterday. The UAW's current contract with the No. 3 U.S. automaker has been opened twice since it was signed in 1979 because of demands from the Federal Loan Guarantee Board that autoworkers help the company out of financial difficulties. The union agreed to the elimination of cost-of- living allowance payments, wage boosts and paid personal holidays.

The pact expires Sept 14. Bargaining usually begins in July but no date has been set. "I'm sure the number one priority will be trying to work out a cost-of-living provision at Chrysler," Fraser said. The UAW signed a concessions contract with Ford Motor Co. on March 1 and has scheduled a signing ceremony for Friday for its new contract ul rnnAr1 Mnnrc Cnm whirh wpnt into pf- 1: headquarters in Toyota, a small city in ceo I tral Japan.

-i The idea of joint production at a March 1 meeting between GM i iimii nuer o. oniim anu iuyuii rresiuenc Eiji Toyoda in New York'? WUHlj The GM delegation, headed byr Jacki Smith, director of worldwide production planning, is expected to trade opinions wittf -i Toyota officials the GM-proposed JUW -cJU2 lit fjyi Jp cn, joint production. The spoXesman-who I asked not to be identified, declined to re- 1 I -A-ftf veal the content of GM's proposal. GM President F. James McDonald said last month that if thp two carmakers agreed on a joint manufacturing venture, they would build 400,000 to 500,000 small cars a year in the United i' According to press reports here, both companies are considering a plan to, manufacture a Corolla-class compact model with a engine, but have hot agreed on the production site.

Toyota prefers an idle GM plant in the eastern United States while GM. I Eagle away The USCG Eagle is leaving the Coast Guard's Curtis Bay shipyard this Saturday after undergoing $2 million worth of reno- vations this fall and winter. The sailing ship will go to New Conn, where it is used as a training vessel for adets. Willi Wliua mvvv. ft feet Monday.

The union will resume contract talks with American Motors Corp. today in Mil-waukee. Ptvm wire reports insists on a plant on the West Coast, accordj 3 ing to reports. f- 5 -r, 4 sis 'S ttui rJ.