GLOBAL MARKET HIGHLIGHTS
Mass. workers need help with cost of living 06-20-03 (boston.com) A new MassINC report, ''The Pursuit of Happiness: A Survey on the Quality of Life in Massachusetts,'' reveals that families are finding it increasingly tough to make ends meet - so much so that an alarming one-quarter of longtime residents and one-third of newcomers say they would leave the state if they could. Based on a survey of more than 1,000 residents conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, the report points to an increasingly fragile American dream in Massachusetts. For a third of those surveyed, the past five years have made achieving the kind of life they want in Massachusetts more of a challenge. Many report living close to the financial edge. Forty percent view their financial situation as either fair or poor. An overwhelming 74 percent see the state's high cost of living as at least somewhat of a problem for them. Financial stress pervades households on every rung of the economic ladder, including those with college degrees and those earning between $60,000 and $100,000. While the roots of this stress may be individual, there is consensus on how to improve quality of life. Housing affordability tops the list. Fifty-four percent believe the cost of housing is a major problem. Young people and those new to the state see our overheated housing market as an impediment to making it in Massachusetts. 
Scorning the working poor, too 06-20-03 (boston.com) Not that long ago, scorn and its handmaidens - disdain and neglect - were pretty much reserved for the welfare poor. The working poor, by comparison, were publicly praised as Americans who ''played by the rules.'' They were folks who warranted a helping hand. But now the rules have officially changed. The line between the deserving and the undeserving poor has moved up a couple of notches on the socio-economic scale. You can now be unworthy even if you're employed. Indeed, by some accounts Americans become deserving - of political attention, that is - only when their wages rise enough to make them eligible for income taxes and therefore income tax cuts. The two leading indicators of the upscaling of scorn were the fates of two tax cuts meant to help low-income families: the child tax credit and marriage penalty relief. The child tax credit debacle began weeks ago when Republicans expanded the credit for middle and well-off families - and deliberately denied it to 6.5 million working poor families. This shouldn't have been a surprise coming from a party that gave $93,500 in tax cuts to million-a-year families. 
Remembering a time when we had interest rates 06-20-03 (nwsource.com) Interest rates on my mind, I called Jim Grant. From his perch on Wall Street, Grant has written several histories of finance. He writes a column on interest rates for Forbes and publishes Grant's Interest Rate Observer. Interest rates are his business. My question to Grant: "What's with these interest rates?" "We don't have them anymore," he said. Indeed. I have been a customer of a certain money-market fund since 1979. I remember when the fund paid 14 percent. Perhaps that was excessive, though it didn't seem so at the time. But 0.96 percent? Give me a break! After taxes and inflation, it is less than nothing. My saved wages dribble away like antifreeze from a rusty radiator. 
Lawmakers Squabble Over Workers Benefits 06-20-03 (Yahoo) House lawmakers searching for ways to help millions of uninsured Americans squabbled Thursday over whether a new program that assists laid-off workers with health insurance costs is already being undermined. A provision in a taxpayer rights bill, passed Thursday, was intended to help those workers buy insurance even if their state did not make the August 1 deadline for meeting the program's standards. But lawmakers disagreed over how much help the bill really offered — Republicans said it would help 12,000 more people get health insurance; Democrats said it would deprive displaced workers of essential consumer protections. 
Evidence grows of US postwar economy rebound 06-20-03 (Yahoo) "The leading economic index finally points to a recovery, almost a year and a half after the end of the recession," Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said. "But the dangers present in the first five months of the year have not disappeared completely. Chief among them is a lack of business confidence," he said in a report. Much of the corporate gloom was linked to a lack of pricing power, limiting companies' ability to make a profit, Goldstein said. 
US weekly jobless claims tumble 13,000 06-20-03 (Yahoo) The decline in claims for the week ended June 14 was roughly in line with Wall Street economists' expectations. "The direction is good, the level is terrible," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. "The claims are simply too high to indicate that there is any strength in the labor market." A four-week average of initial jobless claims eased 3,000 to 432,000. In raw, unadjusted figures, the number of new jobless benefit claims slumped 42,410 to 378,114 in the week. There were 356,096 claims in the comparable week of 2002. 
Is bargain aisle also deflation alley? 06-20-03 (csmonitor.com) Retiree Herb Tamres considers himself a "careful" shopper. He waits for sales. He remembers what he's paid for his groceries in prior weeks. So, as he walks out of a Stop & Shop in Oyster Bay, N.Y., he's pleased that he's got a pound of ham and cheese that were on sale. "When I shop, I want to know what are the specials," says the Mill Neck resident. 

 LATIN AMERICA
Lulas Pragmatic Approach Helps Brazil Find Balance 06-20-03 (Washington Post) As a presidential candidate, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was as quixotic as they come, a former steelworker who promised changes and new support for Brazil's working class. Foreign lenders and investors thought they would have problems in dealing with him. Hunger, poverty and jobs would be his government's priorities. His critics thought his election last November made for good, populist theater, but they feared his government would be a flop. They feared a default on the $260 billion national debt, plummeting currency, rising inflation and a new round of capital flight. 

 ASIA
Hostage, 3 Kidnappers Die in Philippines 06-20-03 (Yahoo) Kidnappers fatally shot a 60-year-old hostage after encountering police at a checkpoint, triggering a gunbattle in which three gang members died and another was captured, police said Thursday. The incident Tuesday in the northern city of Tarlac came hours after kidnappers seized Leticia Tan, 60, in suburban Paranaque, said national police chief Hermogenes Ebdane. The group rammed through one road block in Tarlac, injuring an officer, and then fired at police as they abandoned their vehicles ahead of another checkpoint, Ebdane said. The gunfight ensued. 

 OIL PRICES
Oil Slides Below $30 a Barrel 06-20-03 (Yahoo) In New York, light crude shed 40 cents to $29.96 a barrel, its fifth losing session in the last six, which have pulled prices down more than $2.50 a barrel from last week's three-month highs. London benchmark Brent fell 11 cents by to $26.15 a barrel. U.S. government data on Wednesday showed that near-record imports had boosted U.S. crude stockpiles by 3.9 million barrels last week, cutting the stock deficit from last year's levels to just over 10 percent. Low U.S. crude stocks have helped push oil prices nearly 20 percent above last year to levels that threaten to undermine already weak economic growth. 
Big grant to oil firm shrouded in secrecy 06-20-03 (philly.com) Last week, after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded long-awaited and highly competitive grants for port security projects, many in the maritime trade were baffled by the windfall for Citgo Petroleum Corp. The odds of anyone's getting a grant were no better than one in five. Even then, most of the winners were awarded less than $1 million. But Citgo, the profitable U.S. subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company, hit the jackpot: a $13.5 million grant to upgrade security at its refinery in Lake Charles, La. 
Iraqs first oil exports due 06-20-03 (BBC) A ceremony is scheduled to mark the occasion on Sunday, when the first barrels of Iraqi oil will be loaded for shipment from the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Recently-appointed Iraqi oil minister Thamir Abbas Ghadhban and Phillip Carroll, the US advisor to Iraqi oil officials, are expected to attend. 
Iraqs Postwar Oil Exports to Restart 06-20-03 (Yahoo) "Exports from Ceyhan are fixed for this Sunday — we've received all the documents and the tankers are supposed to be there to lift oil early Sunday," Mohammed Al-Jibouri, the head of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, or SOMO, told Dow Jones Newswires. Iraq's oil pipeline from the northern fields of Kirkuk to Turkey's Ceyhan will start pumping Sunday once the tankers start taking on crude, he said. The pipeline stopped pumping during the U.S.-led war on Iraq, when shipping was stopped and the Ceyhan storage tanks filled to their capacity of 8 million barrels. "Hopefully on Sunday when exports begin we will start pumping oil again," al-Jibouri said. 
Group Calls for U.S. to Reduce Oil Use 06-20-03 (Yahoo) A broad coalition of industry executives and environmentalists is calling on U.S. leaders to chart a new direction on energy policy that would cut oil use by a third and more aggressively address climate change. In a report being issued Wednesday, the coalition decries "the old foot-dragging politics" and gridlock among powerful interest groups that it says has prevented any substantive changes in U.S. energy policy for decades.