Tuesday, August 11,1987/The Battalion/Page 5
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World and Nation
eagan OKs bill to add money
Jo loan deposit insurance fund
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Reagan
igned into law Monday legislation to pump
$10.8 billion into the troubled savings and loan
eposit insurance fund, even though he com-
lained that portions of the banking bill were
anti-competitive and anti-consumer.”
The legislation capped a two-year effort to
rovide relief for the country’s savings and loan
dustry, which includes hundreds of insolvent
stitutions losing an estimated total of $10 mil-
ion a day for lack of federal money to close them
nd pay off depositors.
The Competitive Equality Banking Act will al
low the depleted Federal Savings and Loan In
surance Corp., the fund that insures deposits in
3,200 S&Ls, to borrow up to $10.8 billion over
the next three years to subsidize the takeover of
Failing S&Ls by healthier institutions.
The law also institutes requirements that con
sumers get their checks cleared quicker, bans cre
ation of new limited-service banks and imposes a
loratorium until March 1 on granting banks au-
lority to expand into areas such as insurance,
teal estate and securities underwriting.
Reagan had repeatedly threatened to veto the
legislation, calling the FSLIC rescue fund insuffi
cient and objecting to the other provisions which
blunted the administration’s banking deregu
lation efforts.
However, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker
III reached an llth-hour compromise with con
gressional leaders. Administration officials were
concerned that a protracted veto struggle could
have triggered a crisis of confidence in the sav
ings and loan industry.
Reagan signed the bill during a ceremony in
the Oval Office. In a statement, he praised the
rescue package for avoiding a “taxpayer bailout”
of the S&L industry, but he attacked other sec
tions slowing deregulation.
“These new anti-consumer and anti-compet
itive provisions would hold back a vital service in
dustry at a time when competition in the interna
tional capital markets increasingly challenges
U.S. financial instititions and they should be re
pealed,” he said.
Both the House and Senate passed the bill, the
first comprehensive banking legislation in five
years, by lopsided votes last week.
One noticeable benefit to consumers is a re
quirement for faster clearing of depositors’
checks. The legislation requires banks to make
funds available to depositors for checks written
on local banks after two intervening business
days, starting in September 1988, and after one
intervening business day starting in 1990.
Banks would be able to hold funds for checks
written on out-of-town banks for a maximum of
six business days starting in September 1988 and
four intervening business days in 1990.
As for the savings and loans themselves, one-
fifth of such institutions are unprofitable and
some are insolvent. The problems at these insti
tutions are undermining the entire industry.
The Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which
regulates S&Ls, has been forced to keep bank
rupt institutions open because sufficient money
wasn’t available in the insurance fund, FSLIC, to
close them down and pay off depositors.
The problems have drained FSLIC’s resources
from $6 billion two years ago to a negative $6 bil
lion currently, according to a congressional au
dit. Critics have said the $10.8 billion infusion of
new money will fall far short of the $45 billion
that may eventually be needed to put the indus
try on a sound footing again.
6 sightseers killed, 16 others injured
s boulder smashes into side of bus
nt cvrtm WINTER PARK, Colo. (AP) — A
^^fciige boulder dislodged by state
•jWiignway workers rolled off a moun-
inlkMr' ns '^ e Monday and smashed into a
^loving sightseeing bus, killing six
sople and injuring 16 others, au-
lorities said.
Dan Hopkins, spokesman for the
Colorado Highway Department,
lid a crew was clearing rock above
le roadway and that a front-end
bader dislodged a large rock.
“The rock proceeded over the
dge of the large flat area down
(irough several hundred feet of
('stem c;,;
lurstrtf
trance,;
trees onto the highway below where
it collided with the bus,” he said.
At least five of the 28 people
aboard the bus were seriously in
jured, but six passengers were not
hurt.
Teri Maddox, a reporter for the
weekly Winter Park Manifest and
one of the first people on the scene,
said, “The right side of the bus was
completely torn off, so the seats were
completely exposed. Three bodies
were on the pavement, and the rest
of the people were either standing
around, sitting or lying down. Most
were pretty cut up, even those not
injured seriously.”
The victims were American and
foreign tourists on a one-day sight
seeing tour of the Rocky Mountains.
Their names were not immediately
available, but authorities said three
of the dead were women and three
were men.
The boulder, which authorities
said weighed several tons and mea
sured 17 feet across and 6 feet high,
struck the Gray Line tour bus just
before 11 a.m. as it neared the foot
of the heavily traveled 11,314-foot-
high Berthoud Pass on U.S. 40.
»rit t
Mark Thornton of the Grand
County sheriffs office said the boul
der hit the bus several miles south of
this resort community in the Rocky
Mountains. The accident site is
about 60 miles northwest of Denver.
The bus, driven by nine-year Gray
Line veteran Rod West, remained
upright in the middle of the high
way.
West, who was injured, appar-
endy saw the boulder rolling down
the mountain and swerved, but
couldn’t avoid it, passengers told
Maddox.
lacocca attacks
rampant litigation
at ABA convention
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) —
Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee A.
lacocca told the legal establish
ment on Monday that the will
ingness of Americans to sue “at
the drop of a hat” is killing the
nation’s ability to compete in the
world marketplace.
“Unbridled advocacy is the
problem today, and it’s getting
out of hand,” lacocca said in a
speech to the American Bar Asso
ciation’s annual convention.
“We’ve been going a litde
crazy, and we have to stop, even if
we have to compromise some of
our rights to do it,” lacocca said.
He warned the final judges there
“will always be laymen like me.”
“We’re simple-minded,” he
said. “We will always ask our
selves the simple questions, ‘Does
this make sense?’ and ‘Is this
fair?’ ”
In this 200th anniversary of
the nation’s Constitution, lacocca
said, the best way to honor the
document might be to develop
ways of reducing lawsuits
through compromise.
He denounced the prolifera
tion (
sing tnat an prc
and only irresponsible conduct by
manufacturers should
grounds for suing.
those prices,” lacocca said. “One
of these days we’re going to wake
up and say, ‘The hell with it. It’s
too risky to compete.’ ”
lacocca joked that the best
thing lawyers in America can do
for their country is to go to Japan
to practice.
“There are about as many law
yers there as we have sumo wres-
ders,” he said. “I don’t want to
“Someone got the chair
at those prices. One of
these days we’re going
to wake up and say,
‘The hell with it. It’s too
risky to compete. ’ ”
— Chrysler president
Lee lacocca
of personal injury suits, stres-
: that all products have risks
be
“Automobiles are getting safer
and safer, yet lawsuits keep going
up and up,” he said.
Singling out the $10.3 billion
award to Pennzoil Corp. in its le
gal battle with Texaco as an ex
ample of excessive awards, he
compared the size of the
judgment to capital punishment.
“Someone got the chair at
sound facetious, but this is your
chance to serve your country. Just
get them to buy the idea of puni
tive damages.”
lacocca added that if someone
is irresponsible, he should pay for
it, but he said lawsuits should not
be “used to punish normal risks
that can’t be avoided.”
“We sue each other at the drop
of a hat,” he said, adding that he
has seen estimates that Americans
spend $30 billion a year suing
each other.
Later, in a separate session. Su
preme Court Justice Byron White
warned that increasingly expen
sive state judicial elections leave
judges potentially “subject to dic
tation,” but stopped short of call
ing for elimination of such elec
tions.
Police warrant charges man with corpse abuse
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A warrant was
lissued Monday for the arrest of a man re-
tently evicted from a blood-spattered apart
ment where the decomposed and skeletal
Remains of six or seven people were found
over the weekend.
A canvas bag containing bones of possi-
)ly yet another person was found under a
tattress Monday on the floor below the
third-floor apartment where the bodies
fere found Sunday.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my
24 years as a police officer,” said police Lt.
James A. Hansen, after he emerged from
the stench-filled apartment to get fresh air.
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The building in north Philadelphia is
considered a drug users’ “shooting gallery,”
and drug paraphernalia was found in the
apartment, authorities said. A neighbor
suggested the bodies were of people who
had overdosed on drugs.
The Philadelphia medical examiner con
ducted autopsies on the remains Monday in
an effort to find out how they died and who
they were. Authorities said it could be days
before they have results.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of the
man evicted from the apartment, identified
as Harrison “Marty” Graham, 30, on a
charge of corpse abuse. Homicide Capt.
Robert Grasso said. He said any other
charges have to await autopsy results.
Police also searched nearby buildings
and said they were considering digging up
a nearby vacant lot.
A teen-ager who identified himself only
as a lOth-grader at Daniel Boone High
School said he had seen Graham digging in
a lot nearby several times and once asked
him what he was doing. “Burying dogs,” he
said the man replied.
The neighborhood of vacant or aban
doned buildings and dilapidated homes is
only a few blocks from the 22nd Police Dis
trict but residents say it always has had a
reputation as a hangout for drug pushers
and junkies.
“You can get anything you want — co
caine, heroine, capsules, jam (needles) —
everything, you name it,” a woman who re
fused to give her name said.
Graham, who occupied the apartment
for four years, had nailed his door shut
from the outside and stalked out of the
building after the landlord’s nephew or
dered him out Wednesday or Thursday,
police said.
The bodies were discovered after build
ing owner Nathaniel Choice, who lived on
the first floor, called police Sunday, saying
a stench from the apartment “was getting
worse and the guy hadn’t returned,” Detec
tive Robert McGarry said.
Through a crack in the door, police saw
bodies and blood splattered on one wall,
McGarry said. An initial search produced
two women’s bodies, one naked and the
other partially clothed, he said.
Buried under garbage were the skeletal
remains of three more bodies, one wrapped
in a sheet, police said.
Inside a closet were the skeletal remains
of another body, which appeared to have
been tied up, and beneath that was debris
that appeared to be a seventh body, Mc
Garry said.
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August 31, 1987
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