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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 1980)
^1 THE BATTALION Page 7 MONDAY, APRIL?, 1980 ' business t New mortgage rates will help lenders, borrowers Stock market goes nowhere United Pre$ s Internationa! NEW YORK -1 The stock market tried to rally last w eek but found lit tle support and finished going just about nowhere itj the wake of a col lapse of the silver market and a boost to 20 percent in t fie prime lending rate. Trading was kept to a slow pace by the Passover and Good Friday holy days, the many unanswered ques tions about the Hunt family’s fiasco in the silver market and the New York City mass transit strike. The Dow Jones industrial average, which lost 7.50 points last week, managed to gain 6.48 points to 784.13 in a market that was ripe for bargain hunting if news gets better. The New York Stock Exchange in dex rose 1.13 to 57.95 and Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index added 1.47 United Press International || Savings and loan managers across the country say newly authorized re- negotiable rate mortgages will be- pefit both lenders and borrowers, though it may take time for consum ers to accept the idea. ■The Federal Home Loan Bank Board Thursday authorized the 2,000 federally chartered savings and loan associations under its con- trol to begin issuing the new mort gages immediately, j.; Though the mortgages will extend up to 30 years, the interest charged can be adjusted up or down — within fflnits — every three, four or five years as market interest rates |l* change. Ivin a sampling of savings and loan executives polled across the country, lcrs ' all said they either already had de cided to offer the new mortgages or favored them in principle and were awaiting more details. Charles Koch, president of First Federal Savings in Cleveland, said the mortgages will be “a good deal for both lenders and consumers.” “If I was out looking for a mortgage today,” Koch said, “I wouldn’t want to be fixed at 17 percent if rates can go down later.” “From the consumer standpoint, it is very advantageous,” said Raymond Edwards, chairman of the board of the Glendale Federal Sav ings and Loan Association, Glen dale, Calif. “Who wants to pay a 171/2 percent mortgage rate indefinitely? Mort gage rates are far more likely to go down in the future than up.” “In principle we’re very much in favor,” said Nat Griffen of Suffolk County Federal Savings, Center Reach, N.Y. “The consumer is living two lives. One as a saver, one as a borrower. We have people come in and com plain about high mortgage rates, then walk over to the teller window and take out a 15 percent saving cer tificate. They want it both ways. “If it costs us 18 percent to borrow money for loans, we can’t lend that money out at 15 percent.” Some of the lenders expect con sumer resistance. Amerifirst Federal Savings and Loan Association in Miami said it will offer the new mortgages but that associations in Florida have gotten “less than enthusiastic” consumer response to variable rate mortgages, an earlier form of sliding-scale mort- gage- “I believe it’s because people like to avoid surprises,” an Amerifirst spokesman said, “and to tie down costs as tightly for themselves as pos sible.” “It’s hard to change the psycholo gy of borrowers,” said a spokesman for the San Diego Federal Savings and Loan Association. That firm, which has been offering the earlier variable rate mortgages for about a year, likes the new ones even more. The federal board authorized vari able rate mortgages last spring. Under them, interest rates could rise or fall no more than 21/2 percent over the life of the mortgage. Under the new mortgages, rates can rise or fall up to five percentage points over the life of the mortgage. brazos valley nursery blooming! cinerarias 4" pot. assorted colors. 198 blooming! cactus assortment blooming silk flower garden 3" pot. 1 49 Come in to see our new tropical house plants all sizes — all prices S: brazos valley nursery 1800 s. college 822-1561 mon.-sat. 8-5:30 un, surf, sex, not politics on minds of spring breakers United Press International FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Students from Fort Lauderdale to ~ the Texas beaches lathered on their *J suntan oil Saturday, chugged their y beers and tried to forget this was the I | last big weekend of their annual pil grimage to the sun. jss Cu «The thermometer pushed 90 de an ai;vgrees under a brilliant, cloudless sky arou™ Fort Lauderdale — a scorcher that made the suds flow all the easier, and nit " delighted the tens of thousands who lay alined the sands to the water’s edge, sidesi' In Port Isabel, the sky was hazy i autr and temperatures were moderate tatobut Justice of the Peace Bud Emmons said the weather wasn’t de- d is i terring Easter weekend revelers. negotiL’They get a couple of beers in ustkhem and they don’t care if the wa- gone ser s cold. They don’t care for no ting hing,” Emmons said. [haves Students in Corpus Christi were ilemiengaging in a favorite springtime brinoport — cruising. “They come to lark their cars, turn their stereos on ons (jbd drink,” said Nueces County |(R Commissioner J.P. Luby. “There’s a meve: °t of cruising. The boys look at the girls and the girls look at the boys.” The spring break season officially ends next Sunday, but the IV2- month long party featuring the five S’s — sun, sand, suds, surf and sex — will be over for most students on Easter Sunday. Nineteen-year-old Robert Daly and his buddies from Queens, N.Y., said they have been making every minute of their Fort Lauderdale vacation count by starting their drinking marathon as soon as they wake up. “We start drinking while the other guys are in the shower,” he said. Authorities said this year’s collegi ate visitors are the best behaved in years and have little in common with the rowdy, destructive crowds that came South during the Vietnam era. Causes galvanized the students of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but many students interviewed on the Florida beaches this week were more interested in working on their suntans than foreign affairs and poli tics. “I guess most of the kids don’t read newspapers. Not the ones I meet here anyway,” said Nancy Morris, 21, of Collingswood, N.J., who staked out a section of Daytona Beach closest to a hamburger res taurant. “We don’t talk about Jimmy Carter or politics. This is party time.” But the students said getting jobs after graduation, the military draft, inflation and the Iran situation does worry them. “To tell the truth, I’m just worried about graduating and getting a job, so I can go to the Bahamas,” said Terry Bayda, a senior finance major at St. Bonaventure University. “I would not want to be drafted,” said Jody Layne, a 17-year-old who attends Queens College. “We re not used to having respon sibility, pressures,” she said as she soaked up the sun on Fort Lauder dale Beach with her girlfriends. “We like it at home. We re scared, really, if you think about it . ” is I ‘V'U ?Jtipfnamba Eddie Dominauez '66 Eddie Dominguez '66 Joe Arciniega 74 EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT PROFESSORS, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK! AVAILABLE AT: Heaton Hall Kleberg Library Rudder Tower Sbisa Zachary ^ Saveli Diets/■ a very bright idea PROFESSOR EVALUATION BOOKLET FREE PREGNANCY TESTS • Immediate Appointments • Confidential Counseling • Birth Control Information • Termination of Pregnancy WEST LOOP CLINIC 622-2170 2909 WEST LOOP SOUTH HOUSTON, TEXAS 77027 3 POST OAK 3D. \r vossoale; -T qsi VALUES ON TIRES AND AUTO SERVICE FRONT-END ALIGNMENT 24 95 (Most American & Foreign Cars) Prices good through Tues., April 15 GOODYEAR RADIAL TIRE SPECIALS F.E.T. 20-HR78-15 Custom Tread Radial 69.00.. .2.93 10-CR78-15 Custom Tread Radial 79.00... 3.13 10-FR 78-15 Custom Poly Steel Radial 59.00... 2.57 LUBE, OIL and FILTER 95 (Most American Cars) University Tire & Service Center The MSC Camera Committee presents Over years Glamour Photography with Tues. # April 8 at 7:30 P.M. in Rudder Theater on the Texas A6£M campus students - $ 1 50 non-students - $ 2 50 Tickets available at the MSC box office, j 509 University Dr. 846-5613 (Next to Wyatt's Sporting Goods) fir ear