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Show A i Record Jane Hoyt Editor, San Jose (Calif.) ( Reprinted by Permission ) By Post-Reco- $165,000 Rudy and Donna Cooper combed BRIDGEPORT, CONN. (UPI) -- through the House for Sale ads A $165,000 settlement was recorded again this Sunday. It was their in superior court July 29 for Howard favorite past-timDreaming for the Trumbull man day that they would be able to buy Clark, a who was seriously injured in a truck-ca- r their own home. Two-storcrash on the Connecticut Turn3 bdrm, 2 ba. beauty. three years ago. pike Quiet st., lg panoramic view, The stipulated judgement entered $33,950. by Judge Irving Levine against A. C. Spacious family rm w frplc, Schmidt & Sons Inc., and one of its beaut, shag cpts thruout, 3 bdrms, truck drivers, Henry Heisse, both of lovely yd w lg patio. $29,999. Formal model, 3 bdrm., 2 bath, Philadelphia, Pa., was believed to be among the largest ever recorded separate fam. rm., inside utility, built-i- n here in an auto accident suit. vacuum, $24,490. Clark, who sued for $750,000 in They all sounded wonderful. a owned was car driving damages, Wonderful, that is, until the Coopers Auto his Stratford Supply read the clincher. The price. by the cheapest On that last home Company east on the Turnpike in New Haven, June 28, 1968, during a of the three with a minimum FHA storm. down payment of $1,548, the monthly Heisse was operating a Schmidt payments would be $222, including truck west on the highway when taxes. That is at todays FHA intraffic halted and he tried to stop. terest rate of 7.5 per cent plus 0.5 But his vehicle skidded, glanced off percent mutual mortgage insurance ' a bridge abutment, crossed the road to the lender. and crashed against Clarks car, To qualify for that loan Rudy to officials. according Cooper would have to earn a suffered Clark his Among injuries, minimum of $888 net per month a dislocated hip, fractures of the left above and beyond other payments. leg, both knee caps, ribs, jaw and The Coopers have no chance. After teeth, and a bloodstream infection. taxes Rudy takes home not quite He claimed in his suit he lost time $700 a month from his $10,000-a-yefrom his job and his earning job as electronic technician. Out of capacity had been permanently that comes $87 for the car they impaired. bought a year ago to replace their Clark cited $44,030 in doctor and old clunker, another $53 for furniture hospital bills and income losses in payments, and $118 to repay a his suit. He appeared in court with a family loan for hospitalization when cane. the second baby was born. The stipulated judgement is a Interest d settlement and But even so, real estate interest differs from an ordinary settlement, rates are looking up for the Coopers. which is not recorded. If Rudy and Donna Cooper had wanted to buy that same house a year ago, he would have had to earn not $888 of today but $984 to qualify for the 9 percent interest rate. Even more drastic for the Coopers is the high rate of inflation on home building costs today. That house they were looking at at $24,490 is below the national median e. y, ar court-recorde- Narcotics Unit Cracks Down On Stimulants WASHINGTON (ACCN) The stimulant drugs methamphetamine and amphetamine have come under tighter controls as a result of an order issued by the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). The order, published in the Federal Register, moves the two drugs and their salts and isomers from control Schedule III to Schedule II under the Com- prehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. Signed by John E. Ingersoll, Director of BNDD, the order manufacturers, requires distributors and dispensers of the two drugs to institute tighter controls to prevent diversion into the illicit drug market. Ingersoll said the action was taken upon scientific findings that the drugs (1) have a high potential for abuse, (2) have a currently accepted medical use in treatment with severe restrictions and (3) may lead to severe psychological dependence. Acting under the new law earlier this year, Attorney General John N. Mitchell requested that the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) approve placing the drugs in a more highly controlled category. HEW approved the request and on May 26, BNDD announced its intention to move the drugs up to Category II. One group, the Manufacturers Educational Drug Information Association (MEDIA), objected to the action and requested a hearing. However, MEDIA later withdrew its objection after conferring with BNDD officials. JUST A THOUGHT Those who complained about "taxation WITHOUT representation" should sec it now WITH representation! of $26,000. The average house financed by savings and loan associations in September, 1969 was priced over $30,000. That was nearly two years ago. Things are getting worse. In 1965 the cost of an average d home, including land, was about $16,825. Inflation jumped that same house to $25,000 by 1970. If the Coopers had added the cost of financing, plus the cost of taxes, FHA-insure- insurance, maintenance, and utilities, they would find the total monthly housing expense on that house went up from $148 a month in an increase of 1965 to $272 in 1970 84 percent in just five years. This is serious business. During this same time the median family monthly income rose only 46 percent from $7,000 a year to just over the $10,000 Rudy Cooper grosses. Therefore, in those five inflationary years Rudy Cooper and many other potential homebuyers just like him were priced right out of the housing market because of soaring costs. Were not talking about the low income person who struggles along on $3,000, $4,000, or $5,000 a year. Were talking about all the Rudy the Coopers in our society an average guy doing average job drawing an average paycheck of $10,000. Why So High? why are homes priced so Just exorbitantly today? Ask Herb Gunderson, a Santa Clara County (Calif.) contractor who simply had to give up building his homes. He took the pam ot least resistance and chose to bow out of the market than lower the quality of his homes. With todays market structure, he can no longer afford to build top quality construction at prices people can afford to pay. top-qualit- v Gunderson cites three basic reasons for skyrocketing home costs: rising land prices, increasing construction labor cost coupled with a decline in productivity of labor, and rising cost of construction materials. Drunk Driving Peril Stressed U.S., Industry To Fund Hunt For 'Clean' Gas Conventional Home Priced Out Of Market For Average Income Turnpike Crash Victim Settles For MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1971 THE DAILY RECORD PAGE EIGHT MILWAUKEE WASHINGTON (UPI) -G- overnment and industry signed a $296 million deal August 3 to push research for the day that huge amounts of coal r, even the kind can be g turned into gas. The coal gasification research program was agreed to by interior secretary Rogers C. B. Morton and high-sulfu- high-polluti- clean-burnin- the American Gas Association, represented at a ceremony by Board Chairman G. J. Tankersley. To convert coal to g a acis tremendous gas Morton said. This complishment, is. . . a great step. Rep. Harley O. Staggers, said the coal producing clean-burnin- president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards called for an increase in FHA and VA loan rates. NAREB president Bill N. Brown ot Albuquerque, N.M. a., states have had their money contended this would assure a continuous flow of funds to the mortgage market and ameliorate the serious financial burden borne by sellers of moderately priced homes whose market relies primarily on FHA and VA financing. Labor Let the Cooper family return, now, to Herb Gundersons reasons of higher land prices, labor costs, and construction materials. "Two years ago cost of materials problems, and this will just be a godsend to those states, and to the fuel people. The agreement calls for government to put up $20 million a year and the gas industry $10 million a year, for four years of pilot plant operation of the coal gasification process. Then, government and in a industry would combine formula neither had worked out yet to provide $176 million more in four years of demonstration plant increased enormously. This is operation. something we had never exPresumably by 1980, industry be able to set out on its own would Gunderson before, perienced noted. with coal gasification totaling 500 From 1955-6- 7 productivity of million cubic feet of pipeline labor matched the increases we quality gas per day. Building the paid. But after that time we couldnt plants for that rate would cost some add any more efficiency, and labor $300 to $500 million, an Interior just could not increase productivity spokesman estimated. One pilot plant is operating in to conform with their wage advances. Chicago, another is near completion The building industry, just like in Rapid City, S.D., and another is any other, reflects the economy as a scheduled in Homer City, Pa. Two or whole. In one year everything just three more will be constructed. seemed to get out of control. I had used subcontractors for a number of years. Then suddenly I got tremendous increases in their bids. I tried changing subcontractors but the new ones gave lower quality work as well as a lower bid. i Prices have increased, the quality of work has decreased. This results in the inability of people to even the most qualify for homes mediocre homes. Earning $10,000 a year doesnt even qualify you for a mediocre home today. With rising land cost, rising taxes, rising labor cost, rising construction material cost and rising interest rates, do Rudy and Donna Cooper stand a chance of owning their own home? Maybe they will never own their own conventional home as houses have been popularly conceived ever since the cave and teepee fell out of date. But the Cooper family may own their own home. While conventional homes are being priced out of the grasp of many families, industry is drawing up new ideas. The Coopers may wind up wind a condominium, modular, or mobile home. These types may be the prevalent middle income housing of tomorrow. Court Calendar Reform Failing LOS ANGELES (ACCN) Two years after its inauguration the Los Angeles Superior Courts personal injury short cause program essentially voluntary court reform continues to receive apathetic response from attorneys. Robert Carlson, defense attorney who originally helped design the program, offered an explanation. Attorneys on both sides are just too lazy to sit down and look at their cases, he says. They dont look to see which ones would fit the program. "Also, its difficult to get the opposite side to agree. If the defense says hes ready for short cause, the plaintiff sees that as an admission that the defense case is weak. Superior Court Judge Richard C. Fildew, who consistently hears short cause cases one day a week, praises the program for cutting trial time but said it is not used enough. Japan Lowers Barriers On Score Of Items - Japanese has announced its The TOKYO (ACCN) Government decision to liberalize import restrictions on more than 20 new items, commodity including and other farm products grapefruit as well as internal combustion engines for motor vehicles. This decision follows earlier liberalization measures taken last September and January, reducing the number of items to 60. The Japanese Cabinet further reaffirmed at a meeting June 29 its intention to make additional reductions in the number of items, still subject to residual import curbs, as soon as possible. An additional 20 items will be decontrolled by the end of September as scheduled earlier. That round will trim the number of items to 40, which will place the degree of Japans liberalization on a par with West ed non-liberaliz-ed Germany's. The latest round involves 26 items officially counted as 20 because none of the other six are regarded as single items under the Brussels Tariff Nomenclature. Twenty of the items liberalized June 30 are: live horses; fresh apples; frozen pineapples, whether or not cooked, and not containing added sugar; black tea; Kao-lin- g and other grain sorghams; soya bean, groundnut, rapeseed, mustard seed, cotton seed, corn, safflower seed and sunflower seed oils; meat sausages and the like; frozen pineapples containing added sugar; and other residues resulting from the extraction of soya bean, rapeseed or mustard seed oils; oil-ca- ke unroasted iron pyrites; other natural amorphous graphite; ore; soda ash; sodium of glutamate; preparations and chloramphenicol, tetracycline cycloserine; patent leather and imitation patent leather; articles of tungsten leather apparel; wood charcoal; parts of leather footware; and internal combustion engines for motor vehicles and parts of internal combustion engines. - Warn- cars ing that one out of every driven at night is piloted by a drunken driver, highway safety specialist Marvin H. Wagner of the U.S. Department of Transportations Office of Alcohol Countermeasures cited public attitude as one of the greatest barriers to improved highway safety. Speaking at a luncheon meeting here July 29, during the Eleventh Annual Defense on the Offense Clinic, Wagner said that the drunken driver was the number one killer on the highway. No matter how much we publicly rant and rave against the drunken driver, no matter how many safe driving campaigns we mount, we are not going to make much headway until we recognize the fact that our attitude toward drinking and driving is shot through with sentimentality, apathy and just plain boredom. The Defense on the Offense by the Clinic, Wisconsin Claims Council, the Insurance Trial Counsel of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Casualty Insurance Claims Managers Council and the Defense Research Institute, was attended by nearly 300 defense attorneys and insurance executives from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. 50 rd Add one more reason: the rise and fall in the cost of borrowing money. That 1965 home purchased at the low FHA interest rate of 5.25 percent was commanding 8.5 percent by 1970. Reducing the rate to 7 percent by April, 1971, equalled a monthly savings of $24 a month in carrying costs. Now the cost is up to 7.5 percent plus 0.5 per cent for mutual mortgage insurance. In a letter to President Nixon, the (ACCN) Wagner noted that, although substantial progress has been made in improving the safety characteristics of motor vehicles and in initiating and implementing highway safety programs, little has been gained in communicating to the public the seriousness of drunken driving. He called for a stiffening of controls and penalties and strict and speedy enforcement of the existing laws in this area. We need to bring drunk driving cases to court without delay, and it is imperative that courts stop merely imposing minimum sentences. Lean toward the maximum sentence the public measures the seriousness of the crime by the seriousness of the penalty. What a Claim Discussing Supervisor Wants From His Defense Counsel, another Clinic speaker, Ross G. Hume, assistant claims vice president of the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, emphasized that "the relationship between the trial attorney and the claim examiner on any file in litigation is indeed sophisticated. It requires complete candor as well as Sumflexibility and ingenuity. of discussion a with "The marizing of Use Authority, Granting and Graeber observed: Basically the solution to these problems (in relationships) the authority that is the claimsman and the granted by utilization of that authority by the defense attorney. The attorney must remember that authority is a trust, and when granted it should be treated as such. The claimsman must realize that he cannot jealously guard this area so as to render the defense attorney powerless. hinges on Are Delicacies: Japanese Eel Business Falls Back on Imports TOKYO (ACCN) Operators of eel farms in Shizuoka, Aichi and Mie the three major eel Prefectures breeding centers in Japan are importing young eels from France, Italy, Britain and New Zealand as well as South Korea, Okinawa and Taiwan to keep up with the demand for eels. Eel farm operators began importing eels about two years ago after the outbreak of a strange disease which killed hundreds of thousands of adult eels in 1969-7Last year, the operators paid about $10 million for eels from these countries. The Japanese breeders feed the eels raw sardines and mackerel for about a year and then ship them to Tokyo, Osaka and other big cities where they are sold at high prices. 0. |