Friday, September 27,1985/The Battalion/Page 11
by Jeff MacNelly
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Associated Press
NEW YORK — Technological
change has an uncanny way of spar
ing those products and industries
that seem to be its most likely vic
tims.
Consider the checks most of us
use to pay bills, make purchases and
conduct other routine financial
transactions.
In recent years, these little pieces
of paper have had an onslaught of
competition.
But the check refuses to check
out. In fact, leading companies in
the business of producing and sell
ing printed checks are prospering as
never before.
Deluxe Check Printers of St. Paul,
Minn., boasts a string of yearly gains
in profits dating back at least to the
Nixon administration.
In 1976, its earnings were $24.1
million. Last year, they reached
$87.8 million, and by the end of this
decade the Value Line Investment
Survey projects them at $165 mil
lion.
John H. Harland Co. of Decatur,
Ga., No. 2 in the check-printing
derby, has traveled a similar course.
Earnings of $5.1 million in 1976
grew to $25.2 million in 1984. Value
Line estimates that they will more
than double again by 1988-90.
What about those automatic tell
ers that dispense cash without the
need to write a check? Less than 10
percent of all checks are written for
cash, Value Line says, and even
those don’t appear likely to diminish
drastically.
As automatic-teller services have
proliferated, so have fees charged by
many banks and other financial in
stitutions for some of those services.
Meanwhile, deregulation and new
competition in the financial-services
business have helped printed checks
to multiply.
Let’s say you have shares of a
money-market fund, a bank money-
market deposit account, two credit
cards and separate checking ac
counts for yourself and the little
business you operate on the side.
That could well mean that six sets of
checks repose in your filing cabinet.
The fact that customers don’t
have to plunk down money directly
when they order new checks doesn’t
exactly hurt the printers’ business or
their ability to raise prices. The
charge typically shows up on the
next month’s bank statement, paid
while the buyer wasn’t looking, at a
C rice he or she may not have even
othered to ascertain.
If the trend is so clear, you might
think to yourself, it would make
sense to try to profit from it by in
vesting in the stock of a company
like Deluxe or Harland. Indeed, in
the ranking system that Value Line
applies to all the companies it fol
lows, both are rated high for pro
jected stock performance over the
next 12 months.
But it must be duly noted that
buyers of Deluxe or Harland shares
these days have long since missed
the chance to “get in on the ground
floor.”
Adjusted for stock splits along the
way, Deluxe shares have risen from
$5.25 in the mid-1970s to a peak of
$44.37 this year. Over the same
span, Harland stock, also adjusted
for splits, has soared from $2.75 to
$36.37.
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Israelis attack
Palestinian
guerrilla base
Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli
warplanes attacked a Palestinian
guerrilla base Thursday in the
Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley of
eastern Lebanon, the military
command announced.
It said the base was manned by
guerrillas of a rebel faction of Fa
tah, the main PLO guerrilla
group led by Yasser Arafat. The
rebel faction is led by Abu Musa.
The Israeli planes scored hits
in the area of a two-story building
used by the guerrillas and re
turned safely to their bases, the
command said.
The announcement said the
building was situated at the target
area about four miles west of
Baalbek, near Majdaloun, but did
not say whether it was hit.
It was the third air attack this
year on Abu Musa’s faction and
the 12th on guerrilla targets in
Lebanon.
Abu Musa led a Syrian-backed
rebellion in 1983 against Arafat,
chief of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, demanding
tougfier action against Israel.
More funds requested
for AIDS virus research
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The U.S gov
ernment’s top health official said
Thursday he asked the White House
to approve an additional 55 percent
increase in federal AIDS research
spending.
Dr. James O. Mason, acting assis
tant secretary for health in the
Health and Human Services Depart
ment, told a Senate subcommittee he
has asked the Office of Management
and Budget to approve a $70 million
increase in the administration’s 1986
budget request for AIDS research.
The proposed increase, the sec
ond in two months, would bring
spending in the fiscal year beginning
Oct.l to about $200 million, more
than double the amount President
Reagan asked for in his first budget
proposal in February.
“This disease is the department’s
No. 1 public health priority,” Mason
told the Senate Appropriations sub
committee on health. “We will con
tinue to reassess our efforts to make
maximum progress in our fight
against this oisease.”
Sen. Lowell Weicker, R-Conn.,
the subcommittee chairman, told
Mason the money would be available
as soon as the administration for
mally requests it.
“Whatever you ask for, you got,”
Weicker told Mason.
Another witness gave the panel
new evidence that the disease is
spreading to the heterosexual pop
ulation.
A Harvard researcher cited Army
studies showing that 5.4 percent of
the U.S. soldiers seeking treatment
for venereal disease in Berlin this
June were infected with AIDS.
Dr. William A. Haseltine said they
got the disease from German prosti
tutes, who have infection rates of 50
percent or more. And the soldiers
likely will spread the disease further,
he said.
“These aren’t homosexuals,” he
told the subcommittee. “These
aren’t drug abusers. These are nor
mal, young guys who visited prosti
tutes. Half the prostitutes are in
fected, and these guys got infected.”
Weicker questioned whether
enough soldiers were involved to
draw such broad conclusions. He
cited a study which put the infection
rate at four cases of AIDS among 74
soldiers seeking treatment for VD.
The majority of its victims to date
have been homosexual men, and
many people identify AIDS as a dis
ease of homosexuals. That is not cor
rect, Haseltine said.
“In retrospect it appears that the
original focus on the sexual practices
of homosexuals . . . was misplaced,”
he said. “The virus does not respect
race, sex or sexual preference.”
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P.O.Box 110
Iowa City, Iowa 52244
(319) 337-4811
“HI check
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free this
Saturday!”
—Gary Stevenson, Quality Dealer.
FREE 25-
Point Safety Check 8-12 Saturday Only
1.
Tire Wear/Condition
8.
Brake, Hydraulic System
17.
Condition of Radiator/Coolant
Front/Rear
9.
Emergency Brake Adjustment
18.
Condition of Radiator Hoses
2.
Front and Rear Axle Boots
10.
Clutch Adjustment
19.
Condition of Heater Hoses
3.
Alignment Tire Wear
11.
Clutch Hydraulic System
20.
Condition of Battery
4.
Condition of McPherson
12.
Condition of Muffler
21.
Condition of Battery Cables
Struts
13.
Condition of Exhaust Pipes
22.
Condition of Fuel Filter
5.
Condition of Rear Shock
14.
Engine or Transmission Oil
23.
Condition of Wiper Blades
Absorbers
Leak
24.
Head Light Adjustment
6.
Brake Pedal Adjustment
15.
Condition of Belts
25.
Stop, Tail, Turn Signal Lights
7.
Condition of Front Brakes
16.
Drive Belts Adjustment
Service department open for Free Safety Checks Only. No other service or repairs please.
Gary
Stevenson’s
QUALITY
Pontiac • Bulck • GMC • Subaru
601 S. TEXAS/BRYAN/779-1OOO