Retailers throughout the country are telling The Meyers Report that they've seen a significant increase in sales during the past 10 to 14 days. This is especially true in the economically significant home furnishings sector.
"During the last several weeks business appears to be bouncing back. Traffic is up and people are spending. The feeling is that the public is starting to loosen up their purse strings," said Joe Brown, vice president of merchandising for Wickes Furniture Inc., a national furniture chain.Prior to that, experts were declaring that the home furnishings industry was in the worst depression since 1929. But now, the tide could be turning, and the rest of the economy may not be far behind.
- IRS CLOSING THE BACK DOOR. On June 14, the Internal Revenue Service issued regulations requiring foreign-owned U.S. distributors to keep better records on the prices their parent companies charge them for products and services. Transactions with all foreign companies must now be reported as well.
By overcharging their own distributors, foreign companies are able to reduce their taxable U.S. income. Tax experts believe the U.S. loses as much as $30 billion in tax revenues annually.
Wait for foreign companies to challenge the IRS on the grounds that the new rules, which don't apply to U.S.-owned companies, violate bilateral tax treaties.
- GERMAN CAPITAL INVADING SOVIET UNION. Last week German Chancellor Helmut Kohl announced a commitment to support Soviet economic reform. The very same day, the Bavarian-based Hypobank allocated approximately $1 billion (10 percent of the bank's capital) to develop and rehabilitate the Soviet Union's natural gas resources and other manufacturing businesses.
Like many U.S. banks, Hypobank is operating training programs for would-be Soviet bankers. Financial institutions such as The First National Bank of Chicago, bring Soviet personnel here in the hope of building a management pool to work with and to man branches of foreign banks located in the USSR.
- GIANT CREDIT BUREAU GETS HUGE LAWSUIT. Tales of abusive credit bureaus are legendary. But the latest incident may take the cake, as six states sued TRW, the nation's largest credit checking bureau, for everything from illegally selling consumers' credit information to deliberately or negligently producing and maintaining inaccurate information on many of the 170 million Americans in TRW's files.
States filing lawsuits include: Alabama, California, Idaho, Michigan, New York and Texas.
The New York lawsuit also charges that TRW was keeping two sets of credit records, one that consumers did not know about. The allegedly hidden records were then sold to mailing houses and others checking consumers' credit. If there were errors, the consumer would not be able to correct it in advance, assuming that the consumer was able to find out at all.
- HOME BUYING here vs. there. If you think mortgages are expensive here, consider the cost of home loans in Great Britain. For a fixed-rate mortgage for 25 or 30 years, the Bank of Ireland is charging 11.25% on a loan of between $33,000 and $165,000. The Halifax Building Society (similar to an American savings & loan, only healthier), largest in Britain, charges borrowers 12.75 percent.
In the United States the average mortgage loan costs 9.41 percent. And, that doesn't include various adjustable rate mortgage products that are offered. Some loans allow the borrower to qualify based on the income needed to maintain only a 5 percent or 6 percent interest rate.